genealogy Archives - Page 4 of 5 - Ramblin' with Roger

Connective tissue on Groundhog Day

This is Smalbany, so SURELY they would have met each other by now.

On February 2, my friend Mark, who I’ve known since 1971, when I met him in at college, wrote: “I was at a concert recently and met a woman named Judy. She has friend-requested me [on Facebook], saying she knows Roger Green. I think you’ve mentioned her over the years.”

And evidently, I mentioned him to Judy, who I’ve only known since 1977, when I met her in that same college town. Judy’s also met other friends of mine, somehow, and realized they both knew me.

That evening, I went to First Friday at my church. The singer, Carla, who sang beautifully, BTW, has known a woman I’ve known through the library foundation for years. My activist friends Lynne and Dan were there, who I’ve known since the early 1980s. So was my activist friend Darby, who I’ve known since the late 1980s.

This is Smalbany, so SURELY they would have met each other by now. They knew other people in common besides me. But no, they had never crossed paths. So I introduced them.

And because it’s been on my mind a LOT lately, we discussed genealogy. Darby, Dan, and I all have misidentified ancestors in our family trees. As I’ve noted, mine involves my father’s biological father.

My second cousin Lisa called me that day. We’re working on a project that I’ll describe soon. She’s been doing genealogy of her family for years, and of course, there is some crossover.

To that end, she’s pretty much ordered me to do one of those DNA tests that Ancestry and others sell. Lisa had done hers and it pretty much disproved a family myth in her lines. But maybe some of the other lines in my past will tell a different story.

I related much of this to my wife just before we went to bed. She said, “You have an interesting life.” I guess I do.

Civil War & great (X2) grandfather James Archer

“74% of all free blacks of military age (18-45) fought for their country, and from all reported casualties, about one-third lost their lives.”

When my sister Leslie and I visited our hometown of Binghamton, NY in October 2017, we went up to Spring Forest Cemetery and visited the graves of my grandma Gertrude Williams, her siblings Edward Jr. and Adenia, and their mother, Lillian (nee Archer) Yates Holland, who had been widowed and remarried. It is very near where they all grew up.

What we had never seen before, maybe a couple of dozen meters away, was a headstone for Lillian’s parents, James Archer (1834-1912) and his wife Harriet (1838-1928). It was NOT the separate headstones I’d seen at FindAGrave.com – – James’ is shown here from c 2009 – but something more ornamental.

In January 2017, during that cold snap, my second cousin Lisa, whose grandfather was Gertrude’s brother Ernie – though she never met him, as he died in 1954 – was doing some genealogical research.

She discovered James Archer in the 1890 civil war veterans’ census, showing that he volunteered and served from 29 December 1863 to the day he was mustered out on 29 August 1865.

“The 26th U.S. Colored Troops served under the Department of the South (Union Army) in South Carolina and was very active on Johns and James Island, Honey Hill, Beaufort, and a number of other locations.” On this page, you see a picture of the 1000-plus man strong 26th USCT on parade and their regimental banner.

Totally separately, my sister Marcia was going through some old, and unfortunately unmarked, photos that our mother had gotten from her mother. And one of them was this:

Is James Archer one of these men? We have no idea, but we’d like to think so. Cousin Anne, Lisa’s sister, notes: “One clue from the census is he had hazel eyes. Can you tell from the original photo the color of their eyes?” Which guy has the lightest eyes?

Lisa noted: “74% of all free blacks of military age (18-45) fought for their country, and from all reported casualties, about one-third lost their lives. I’m happy to say my great-great-grandfather was one of the survivors; he died in 1912, and I’m proud to be able to tell this piece of his story.”

One other detail worth noting: Lillian Yates Holland, James and Harriet’s daughter, wasn’t born until 1866. Had James died in battle, there would have been no Lillian, which meant she and Edward Yates Sr. wouldn’t have had Gertrude and Ernie, which would have meant no Trudy (my mom) and Fran (Lisa’s mom)…

Well, you get the picture.

Lillian Yates Holland

The problem is time. It’s always time.

Right after my mother’s death half a decade ago, I had this renewed interest in my family genealogy. For one thing, the family Bible had lots of information, some going back a century and a half. The matriarch of the clan was my maternal grandmother’s mother, Lillian Yates Holland.

This picture was reportedly taken when she was still Lillian Archer, and was sixteen, though she looks older to me.

She had five children, four of whom survived childhood: Gertrude, Edward, Ernest, and Adenia Yates. Gert, who married Clarence Williams, was my grandma and lived with Deana in the house I went to every day for lunch growing up. Ed lived up the hill from Gert and Deana. Ernie, the father of my mom’s four first cousins, died when I was an infant; apparently, I was afraid of him, because he reminded me of my pediatrician, Dr. Israel Rosefsky.

Lillian was married to Edward Yates, Sr., before he passed away circa 1910. She married again, to a man named Holland, who, according to various Census records, was from Texas. Or Mexico. There’s a lot of that contrary information in the minimal digging my sisters and I have done.

It’s clear that Lillian had a not-distant ancestor who was part Irish. Or English. I’ve not dug far enough back to ascertain this. I suppose I assume it was Irish because of the real-life story of a black man and Irish woman in the book The Sweeter The Juice.

Some people fret about what they would do when they retire. Surely one of my tasks would be to fill out the family tree more fully. It’s not that I don’t currently have the resources; I’ve had a membership with ancestry.com for at least a couple of years.

The problem is time. It’s always time.

The other thing my sisters and have vowed to do, sooner than later, is to get a headstone for Gert and Deana. Deana died in the mid-1960s, and Gert in 1983, but my parents, for whatever reason, never got a marker. They’re buried very near where Lillian was laid to rest, in Spring Forest Cemetery in Binghamton, NY, not two blocks from where Lillian, and Gert and her sibs, and my mother all grew up.

The royal connection

My wife and daughter, if you go back far enough, have common ancestors with the guys who are second and third in line to the British throne.

As I have alluded to before, my wife and my daughter are related to William and Harry and George, those UK royals.

It seems that:
Henry Spencer (b. 1353) married Isabel Lincoln (b. 1357)
They had at least two sons:
William Spencer (b. 1376) is a direct ancestor of Diana Spencer (b. July 1, 1961)
Thomas Spencer (b. 1378) is a direct ancestor of Susannah Spencer (b. 1680). Susannah married John Olin (b.1664) on October 4, 1708.

You may recall that John Olin, who was once a 14-year old cabin boy as an indentured servant, forced into service on the British ship Man-O-War, jumped off the boat heading for Boston harbor. He swam ashore, stealthily traveled inland for about a week, and ended up in the care of the Narragansett Indians for eight years. He became an indentured servant to a Samuel Gorton until 1700, when he became a free man.

John and Susannah had four known children, Joseph, John, Henry and Eleanor. Joseph was the ancestor, eight generations back, of my mother-in-law. Thus my wife and daughter, if you go back far enough, have common ancestors with the guys who are second, third, and fourth in line to the British throne.

This means, of course, that, as President of the Olin family reunion, New York/Pennsylvania branch, I ought to send the William and George (and Harry) an invitation to the annual event.

The end of the world

The End of the World by Skeeter Davis, which came out in early 1963, is considered the most successful crossover hit ever

I’m rushing out to go to work last Friday when my eyeglasses break. This isn’t the screw coming out, for which I have tools for fixing the problem – assuming I can find the screw, and the tools. No, this break severed the screw. AND I can’t find the lens because I don’t have my glasses. The Wife comes to my aid.

I seek older pairs of my eyewear. Even days later, I discover: 1) the previous pair of glasses is MIA; 2) the pair before that is broken. I found a couple of eyeglasses cases that are empty. Discovered an old pair from, a decade ago? or longer? that The Daughter thinks are scary because they’re much larger on my face. If I had my photos in order, I could find a photo of me wearing them.

Got through the weekend with the ancient pair. Not so hard to use at the computer, but it’s a challenge reading music at church on Sunday, especially the offertory in 5/4. Fortunately, the anthem was “Come Thy Holy Spirit” by Pavel Tschesnokoff, which I first sang 45 YEARS AGO. (Lots of versions online as “Let Thy Holy Spirit“.)

In other words, breaking the glasses was not “The end of the world,” especially after I get them fixed Monday.
***
Sad news: Warren Olin died Sunday afternoon. He was the patriarch of the Olin clan, eldest of eight children, and the family genealogist who discovered his ninth generation ancestors John Olin and Susannah Spencer, and wrote the book – actually two books – about them and their descendants. Warren was the older brother of my mother-in-law, and my wife’s uncle.

Oddly, though, he didn’t want any funeral or public event, much to The Wife’s surprise. We’re sure all the branches of the clan would have wanted to acknowledge his passing. I can only gather that he didn’t want to be a bother.

(For my departure, you can make all the civilized ruckus you want. I’m requesting Chopin’s “Raindrop” Prelude in D flat Major, Op.28 No.15, which someone was playing after church this weekend.)
***
Some friend of my niece Alexandria was noting the passing of a huge asteroid by the Earth this past Sunday.

peaking about “The Beast”, [an expert] said: “This one would definitely be catastrophic if it hit the Earth…
“If it hit a city, it would definitely wipe out an entire metropolitan area.”
The explosion would unleash an explosion with a yield of about 2000 megatons.
“You’d end up with a crater about 4.8km (~3 miles) across… An event like that would break windows over 100 kilometres (~62 miles) away.”

Alex’s friend complained: “So why am I only finding out about this NOW?” The facts were known by astronomers two weeks ago. I wondered, “What would you do if you knew?”

Now if we knew this, or a subsequent large asteroid, WERE going to hit the earth, I wonder how we would live our lives differently?
***
All this, of course, had me thinking about music. I Googled End of the World music. Naturally, I got that REM song. But that wasn’t what I was wanted.

I had on my mind The End of the World by Skeeter Davis, which came out in early 1963. It is considered the most successful crossover hit ever, going to #2 on both the country and pop charts, #1 on the adult contemporary charts, and, surprisingly, #4 on the rhythm and blues charts, “making Davis one of the very few Caucasian female singers to have a top ten hit in that market.” I love the set on this live version.